The majority of enterprises in many developing countries have no paid workers. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Sri Lanka that provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor would benefit such firms. In the presence of...

Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock...

The majority of enterprises in developing countries have no paid workers. Is this optimal, or the result of frictions in labor markets? We conduct an experiment providing wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises in Sri Lanka. In the presence of frictions, a short-term subsidy could...

Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock...

Many microenterprises in developing countries have high returns to capital, but also face risky revenue streams. In principle, equity offers several advantages over debt when financing investments of this nature, but the use of equity in practice has been largely limited to investments in much...

Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult due to the fact that the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. We test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags as a means of objectively...